SEEING EUROPE WITH FAMOUS AUTHORS SELECTED AND EDITED WITH INTRODUCTIONS, ETC. BY FRANCIS W. HALSEY Editor of "Great Epochs in American History" Associate Editor of "The Worlds Famous Orations" and of "The Best of the World's Classics," etc. IN TEN VOLUMES ILLUSTRATED Vol. VII ITALY, SICILY, AND GREECE Part One FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY NEW YORK AND LONDON COPYRIGHT, 1914, BY [Printed in the United States of America] INTRODUCTION TO VOLUMES VII AND VIII Italy, Sicily and Greece Tourists in great numbers now go to Italy by steamers that have Naples and Genoa for ports. By the fast Channel steamers, however, touching at Cherbourg and Havre, one may make the trip in less time (rail journey included). In going to Rome, four days could thus be saved; but the expense will be greater—perhaps forty per cent. "and now, fair Italy! Thou art the garden of the world, the home Of all Art yields, and Nature can decree; Even in thy desert, what is like to thee? Thy very weeds are beautiful, thy waste More rich than other climes' fertility; Thy wreck a glory, and thy ruin graced With an immaculate charm which can not be defaced." At least four civilizations, and probably five, have dominated Italy; together they cover a period of more than 3,000 years—Pelasgian, Etruscan, Greek, Roman, Italian. Of these the Pelasgian is, in the main, legendary. Next came the Etruscan. How old that civilization is no man knows, but its beginnings date from at least 1000 B.C.— that is, earlier than Homer's writings, and earlier by nearly three centuries than the wall built by Romulus around Rome. The Etruscan state was a federation of twelve cities, embracing a large part of central and northern Italy—from near Naples as far north perhaps as Milan and the great Lombard plain. Etruscans thus dominated the largest, and certainly the fairest, parts of Italy. Before Rome was founded, the Etruscan cities were populous and opulent commonwealths. Together they formed one of the great naval powers of the Mediterranean. Of their civilization, we have abundant knowledge from architectural remains, and, from thousands of inscriptions still extant. Cortona was one of their oldest towns. "Ere Troy itself arose, Cortona was." After the Etruscans, came Greeks, who made flourishing settlements in southern Italy, the chief of which was Paestum, founded not later than 600 B.C. Stupendous ruins survive at Paestum; few more interesting ones have come down to us from the world of ancient Hellas. The oldest dates from about 570 B.C. Here was once the most fertile and beautiful part of Italy, celebrated for its flowers so that Virgil praised them. It is now a lonely and forsaken land, forbidding and malarious. Once thickly populated, it has become scarcely more than a haunt of buffalos and peasants, who wander indifferent among these colossal remains of a vanished race. These, however, are not the civilizations that do most attract tourists to Italy, but the remains found there of ancient Rome. Of that empire all modern men are heirs—heirs of her marvelous political structure, of her social and industrial laws. Last of these five civilizations is the Italian, the beginnings of which date from Theodoric the Goth, who in the fifth century set up a kingdom independent of Rome; but Gothic rule was of short life, and then came the Lombards, who for two hundred years were dominant in northern and central parts, or until Charlemagne grasped their tottering kingdom and put on their famous Iron Crown. In the south Charlemagne's empire never flourished. That part of Italy was for centuries the prey of Saracens, Magyars and Scandinavians. From these events emerged modern Italy—the rise of her vigorous republics, Pisa, Genoa, Florence, Venice; the dawn, meridian splendor and decline of her great schools of sculpture, painting and architecture, the power and beauty of which have held the world in subjection; her literature, to which also the world has become a willing captive; her splendid municipal spirit; a Church, whose influence has circled the globe, and in which historians, in a spiritual sense, have seen a survival of Imperial Rome. But here are tales that every schoolboy hears. Sicily is reached in a night by steamer from Naples to Palermo, or the tourist may go by train from Naples to Reggio, and thence by ferry across the strait to Messina. Its earliest people were contemporaries of the Etruscans. Phœnicians also made settlements there, as they did in many parts of the Mediterranean, but these were purely commercial enterprises. Real civilization in Sicily dates from neither of those races, but from Dorian and Ionic Greeks, who came perhaps as early as the founding of Rome—that is, in the seventh or eighth century B.C. The great cities of the Sicilian Greeks were Syracuse, Segesta and Girgenti, where still survive colossal remains of their genius. In military and political senses, the island for 3,000 years has been overrun, plundered and torn asunder by every race known to Mediterranean waters. Beside those already named, are Carthaginians under Hannibal, Vandals under Genseric, Goths under Theodoric, Byzantines under Belisarius, Saracens from Asia Minor, Normans under Robert Guiscard, German emperors of the thirteenth century, French Angevine princes (in whose time came the Sicilian Vespers), Spaniards of the house of Aragon, French under Napoleon, Austrians of the nineteenth century, and then—that glorious day when Garibaldi transferred it to the victorious Sardinian king. The tourist who seeks Greece from northern Europe may go from Trieste by steamer along the Dalmatian coast (in itself a trip of fine surprizes), to Cattaro and Corfu, transferring to another steamer for the Piræus, the port of Athens; or from Italy by steamer direct from Brindisi, the ancient Brundusium, whence sailed all Roman expeditions to the East, and where in retirement once dwelt Cicero. No writer has known where to date the beginnings of civilization in Greece, but with Mycenæ, Tiryns, and the Minoan palace of Crete laid bare, antiquarians have pointed the way to dates far older than anything before recorded. The palace of Minos is ancient enough to make the Homeric age seem modern. With the Dorian invasion of Greece about 1000 B.C., begins that Greek civilization of which we have so much authentic knowledge. Dorian influence was confined largely to Sparta, but it spread to many Greek colonies in the central Mediterranean and in the Levant. It became a powerful influence, alike in art, in domestic life, and in political supremacy. One of its noblest achievements was its help in keeping out the Persian, and another in supplanting in the Mediterranean the commercial rule of Phœnicians. Attica and Sparta became world- famous cities, with stupendous achievements in every domain of human art and human efficiency. The colossal debt all Europe and all America owe them, is known to everyone who has ever been to school. F. W. H. CONTENTS OF VOLUME VII Italy, Sicily, and Greece—Part One INTRODUCTION TO VOLS. VII AND VIII—By the Editor. I—ROME PAGE FIRST DAYS IN THE ETERNAL CITY—By Johann Wolfgang von Goethe 1 THE ANTIQUITIES—By Joseph Addison 10 THE PALACE OF THE CÆSARS—By Rodolfo Lanciani 17 THE COLISEUM—By George S. Hillard 24 THE PANTHEON—By George S. Hillard 29 HADRIAN'S TOMB—By Rodolfo Lanciani 32 TRAJAN'S FORUM—By Francis Wey 35 THE BATHS OF CARACALLA—By Hippolyte Adolphe Taine 37 THE AQUEDUCT BUILDERS—By Rodolfo Lanciani 41 THE QUARRIES AND BRICKS OF THE ANCIENT City—By Rodolfo Lanciani 45 PALM SUNDAY IN ST. PETER—By Grace Greenwood (Mrs. Lippincott) 53 THE ELECTION OF A POPE—By Cardinal Wiseman 55 AN AUDIENCE WITH PIUS X.—By Mary Emogene Hazeltine 59 THE ASCENT OF THE DOME OF ST. PETER'S—By George S. Hillard 64 SANTA MARIA MAGGIORE—By Hippolyte Adolphe Taine 67 CATACOMBS AND CRYPTS—By Charles Dickens 69 THE CEMETERY OF THE CAPUCHINS—By Nathaniel Hawthorne 73 THE BURIAL PLACE OF KEATS AND SHELLEY—By Nathaniel Parker Willis 75 EXCURSIONS NEAR ROME—By Charles Dickens 78 II—FLORENCE THE APPROACH BY CARRIAGE ROAD—By Nathaniel Hawthorne 83 THE OLD PALACE AND THE LOGGIA—By Theophile Gautier 86 THE ORIGINS OF THE CITY—By Grant Allen 92 THE CATHEDRAL—By Hippolyte Adolphe Taine 96 THE ASCENT OF THE DOME OF BRUNELLESCHI—By Mr. and Mrs. Edwin H. Blashfield 102 ARNOLFO, GIOTTO AND BRUNELLESCHI—By Mrs. Oliphant 106 GHIBERTI'S GATES—By Charles Yriarte 116 THE PONTE VECCHIO By Charles Yriarte 119 SANTA CROCE—By Charles Yriarte 121 THE UFFIZI GALLERY—By Hippolyte Adolphe Taine 125 FLORENCE EIGHTY YEARS AGO—By William Cullen Bryant 131 III—VENICE THE APPROACH FROM THE SEA—By Charles Yriarte 138 THE APPROACH BY TRAIN—By the Editor 140 A TOUR OF THE GRAND CANAL—By Theophile Gautier 143 ST. MARK'S CHURCH—By John Ruskin 148 HOW THE OLD CAMPANILE WAS BUILT—By Horatio F. Brown 155 HOW THE CAMPANILE FELL—By Horatio F. Brown 161 THE PALACE OF THE DOGES—By John Ruskin 163 THE LAGOONS—By Horatio F. Brown 174 THE DECLINE AMID SPLENDOR By Hippolyte Adolphe Taine 177 THE DOVES OF ST. MARK'S—By Horatio F. Brown 183 TORCELLO, THE MOTHER CITY—By John Ruskin 186 CADORE, TITIAN'S BIRTHPLACE—By Amelia B. Edwards 189 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS VOLUME VII FRONTISPIECE THE COLISEUM AND THE ARCH OF TITUS PRECEDING PAGE 1 THE PANTHEON, ROME ROME: THE TIBER, CASTLE OF ST. ANGELO, AND DOME OF ST. PETER'S ROME: RUINS OF THE PALACE OF THE CÆSARS ROME: THE SAN SEBASTIAN GATE THE TOMB OF METELLA ON THE APPIAN WAY THE TARPEIAN ROCK IN ROME INTERIOR OF THE COLISEUM THE COLISEUM, ROME ST. PETER'S, ROME ROME: INTERIOR OF ST. PETER'S ROME: INTERIOR OF SANTA MARIA MAGGIORE THE CATHEDRAL, FLORENCE [...]... and borne down with numberless phenomena Wherever one goes and casts a look around, the eye is at once struck with some landscape—forms of every kind and style; palaces and ruins, gardens and statuary, distant views of villas, cottages and stables, triumphal arches and columns, often crowding so close together, that they might all be sketched on a single sheet of paper He ought to have a hundred hands... vivid, and so coherent, that they may almost pass for new ones I have now been here seven days, and by degrees have formed in my mind a general idea of the city We go diligently backward and forward While I am thus making myself acquainted with the plan of old and new Rome, viewing the ruins and the buildings, visiting this and that villa, the grandest and most remarkable objects are slowly and leisurely... which we found bright and cheerful, and with a good light for the pictures "The Last Judgment" divided our admiration with the paintings on the roof by Michael Angelo I could only see and wonder The mental confidence and boldness of the master, and his grandeur of conception, are beyond all expression After we had looked at all of them over and over again, we left this sacred building, and went to St Peter's,... churches, and a great temple all in the air, and beautiful walks between We mounted the dome, and saw glistening before us the regions of the Apennines, Soracte, and toward Tivoli the volcanic hills Frascati, Castelgandolfo, and the plains, and beyond all the sea Close at our feet lay the whole city of Rome in its length and breadth, with its mountain palaces, domes, etc Not a breath of air was moving, and. .. comprised within the precincts of the enchanting residence waterfalls supplied by an aqueduct fifty miles long, lakes and rivers shaded by dense masses of foliage, with harbors and docks for the imperial galleys; a vestibule containing a bronze colossus one hundred and twenty feet high; porticos three thousand feet long; farms and vineyards, pasture grounds and woods teeming with the rarest and costliest... Bupalos and Anthermos; the quadriga of the sun in gilt bronze; exquisite ivory carvings; a bronze colossus fifty feet high; hundreds of medallions in gold, silver, and bronze; gold and silver plate; a collection of gems and cameos; and, lastly, candelabras which had been the property of Alexander the Great, and the admiration of the East Has the world ever seen a collection of greater artistic and material... contemplated I do but keep my eyes open and see, and then go and come again, for it is only in Rome one can duly prepare oneself for Rome It must, in truth, be confessed, that it is a sad and melancholy business to prick and track out ancient Rome in new Rome; however, it must be done, and we may hope at least for an incalculable gratification We meet with traces both of majesty and of ruin, which alike surpass... its way up the sides, and through every chink and opening, while the moon lit it up like a cloud The sight was exceedingly glorious In such a light one ought also to see the Pantheon, the Capitol, the Portico of St Peter's, and the other grand streets and squares and thus sun and moon, like the human mind, have quite a different work to do here from elsewhere, where the vastest and yet the most elegant... game, zoological and botanical gardens; sulfur baths supplied from springs twelve miles distant; sea baths supplied from the waters of the Mediterranean, sixteen miles distant at the nearest point; thousands of columns crowned with capitals of Corinthian gilt metal; thousands of statues stolen from Greece and Asia Minor; walls encrusted with gems and motherof-pearl; banqueting-halls with ivory ceilings,... without gaining that of grandeur The eye was teased with a multitude of details, not in themselves good; the same defects were repeated in each story, and the real height was diminished by the projecting and ungraceful cornices The interior arrangements were admirable; and modern architects can not sufficiently commend the skill with which eighty thousand spectators were accommodated with seats; or the ingenious . SEEING EUROPE WITH FAMOUS AUTHORS SELECTED AND EDITED WITH INTRODUCTIONS, ETC. BY FRANCIS W. HALSEY Editor of "Great. villa, the grandest and most remarkable objects are slowly and leisurely contemplated. I do but keep my eyes open and see, and then go and come again,